


It's only murder when you do nothing at all

by SilverPaws



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate season 4 end, F/M, Killing is an option, Sad Stiles, Scott Bashing, Slight spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2282775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverPaws/pseuds/SilverPaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking a life because you wanted to made you a killer. But killing because you have to makes you a predator and Malia had always been an apex predator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's only murder when you do nothing at all

**Author's Note:**

> So I was pretty disappointed with how season 4 ended and I'm just tired of Scott refusing to kill when it's clearly just going to cost more people their lives further down the line. Urgh and don't even get me started on the true alpha business.

Stiles had always known Scott wasn't a killer. His happy go lucky friend just didn't have it in him, not when someone else would do it for him. He couldn't hate him for not wanting to be a killer - but happily forcing someone else to be one just to preserve his own self righteousness? Happily was probably an unfair way of putting it but then, Stiles was mourning another loss through Scott's actions, or rather lack of. 

When Malia first shifted back she would have called Scott weak - survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. It wasn't that she wanted to kill but she knew that it was often the only solution. Hungry? Kill a deer. Another predator on your territory? Tear their throat out or start running. That changed when she became a girl again. Stiles happened. With never ending patience and constant encouragement she learned what was expected of her. Even learned to express her concerns rather than accept that feeling concerned was generous enough of her. He changed her and she was indebted to him for that, maybe even loved him for it, but now she'd never know. She cared enough that when Peter turned on them in Mexico and Scott wouldn't do what was necessary, she slashed apart the throat of the father she didn't know and never would. Peter didn't die straight away though, he bled out slowly as Malia sat by him, ready to strike again if she had to but in reality just checking he died. Beacon hills had enough of a reputation without one more not-quite-dead-dead-guy. He was her father and her human life said she should be distraught at him dying, in tears at the very least and yet, as he took his final breath, Malia felt only relief. Peter would have killed her friends because he wanted to and so she had stopped him in the only way she knew. You don't catch a killer. You stop them and Malia had stopped him from ever killing again. 

Malia didn't blame Scott - he couldn't accept that the wolf isn't a killer, it's a predator but she knew and she forgave him. Stiles didn't know that though. He knew that the only girl he had truly cared for (who for once felt the same way back) had killed her own father to protect him. She saved them but killed them all the same. Scott blamed her. Told her there was a better way so many times that she decided she really wasn't okay with being part of society anymore. She was a predator in a town that called them monsters and there was nothing holding her there now. Not when Stiles couldn't look at her without pity in his eyes and words of comfort she didn't need. He cared, but he didn't understand. No one did. She was a coyote inside and when the full moon rose she was a coyote on the outside too, never to be human again. Malia didn't run away from her human life - she returned to the only life that she understood, where it was survival of the fittest and she was always going to survive. 

It took Stiles a long time to realise she probably didn't want to be found, to stop searching the woods for her, even longer to stop reaching out for her in his sleep. Eventually he moved on, but he never could find it in himself to fully forgive Scott. Malia had made her choice because Scott would never take the final step to save the people he loved and because Stiles was honest with his flaws, he knew without a doubt that part of him would hate Scott forever - and he was not ashamed of that in the slightest. Malia had killed, but it was Scott's lack of action that had taken the life she should have had and that's what made him a monster after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I barely ever write anything so comments would be appreciated :)


End file.
